A gallery exhibit showcasing student art opened Tuesday in Lawrence Hall, but rather than the usual paintings and sculptures, the pieces on display were everyday objects — kitchen utensils, lamps, running shoes and shelves.
It was a gallery showcasing the work of the product design program, one of the newest majors at the University. The interdisciplinary program, which combines course elements from art and interior architecture as well as business and even anthropology, focuses on designing products for consumer use.
“It takes the artistic discipline and puts it into a practical framework,” said Kayla Hinds, administrative assistant for product design.
The program was established last year through Campaign Oregon fundraising money. According to the Campaign Oregon Web site, the majority of the funding was contributed by Tim and Mary Boyle. Tim Boyle is the president and CEO of Columbia Sportswear.
Corporate involvement is a large part of the program. Companies sponsor some of the studio workshops and send professional designers to critique and work with the students.
Last year, students displayed their work at the Columbia Sportswear headquarters at the end of the fall term.
Product design associate professor Kiersten Muenchinger said other companies involved include Ziba Design, Raygun Digital Artistry, Intel (which is sponsoring an upcoming studio), Cinco Design and Mayer/Reed, a landscape design firm.
Nike sponsored a studio last year, and two designers from the company work as adjunct professors with fourth-year students in studio classes.
Corporate involvement, especially from Nike, is sometimes considered suspect by members of the campus community, but Muenchinger said the sponsorship has much to do with the design industry’s “culture of giving back.”
“In this field, people are very active practitioners as well as researchers,” Muenchinger said. “I feel it’s about teaching. The people who come down here are here to teach, not spread Nike-ness.”
Ruby Sprengle, a senior product design student, said the designers “help (students) develop ideas, think about design and push us as far as we can go.”
Sprengle said the fourth-year students will be presenting their work at the White Stag Building in Portland at the end of the term to a panel of professional designers and executives, including some from Nike.
But the major is not just about consumer products. This July, groups of product design majors set their talents to work to improve the lives of the homeless.
In a week-long intensive course, groups of students collaborated to design portable shelters for the homeless. Muenchinger said the goal was to build an urban shelter “using found materials from the street and design something usable on the street.”
Sprengle’s group designed what they dubbed a “utility quilt” — a durable, waterproof blanket made out of recycled plastic bags that also can serve as a tarp or tent. The quilt used old bicycle tubes as bungee cords and had a map of west Portland on it, including shelters and soup kitchens.
The week culminated with the students living in the shelters for one night.
With its mix of the artistic and the practical, the corporate and the academic, the business-minded and the altruistic, the major is somewhat of an anomaly.
Similar programs exist on the East Coast, but there are only three west of the Rocky Mountains, Muenchinger said. The rarity is no small part of why businesses are eager to participate, especially in Portland, a design industry hotspot.
“The industry around here is really supportive,” Muenchinger said.
“There’s not any other schools in the Northwest doing this.”
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Design major links students, companies
Daily Emerald
October 13, 2009
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